Search Console's Generative AI report

What this report measures

Since June 2026, Google Search Console publishes a Generative AI report (Performance → Generative AI): how many times your pages appeared in Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. It is the only official measure, from Google itself, of your presence in its generated answers.

• Impressions only, by date, page, country and device. Google provides no clicks, click-through rate or queries for these answers.
• Complements PivotSEO's scans: our scans observe AI engines' answers on the prompts you track. This report counts all your visitors' real searches on Google.

Why it matters

• An impression without a click is not a failure. When the AI answer is enough, the searcher doesn't click. A page losing clicks may actually be gaining visibility: without this report, your figures only show half the picture, and a client may believe in a decline that isn't one.
• It is the most direct proof of GEO work on Google. Seeing the AI share of your impressions rise is the expected outcome of well-structured, citable, up-to-date content.
• It names the pages Google's AI uses, so the ones to protect and enrich first.

Why it has to be imported by hand

Google opened this report in Search Console, but not in its API: the programming interface rejects any request about generative AI. No tool — PivotSEO included — can therefore read it automatically. The only way is the export you download yourself. As soon as Google opens it, PivotSEO will fetch it on its own during the Sunday scan and you won't have anything to do. Until then, one export a month is enough.

How to import it

• 1. Open Search Console, then Performance → Generative AI.
• 2. Pick the Last 3 months period: long enough to compare the last four weeks with the four before.
• 3. Click Export → Download CSV. (Not Excel or Google Sheets.)
• 4. In PivotSEO, on the Google Search Console page, Your impressions in Google's AI answers card: upload the .zip file as is, without opening it.
• A new import replaces the previous one for the days it covers: you can re-import without any risk of duplicates.
• Importing is reserved to the project's owner and editors; a viewer sees the figures.

Reading the figures

• Share of your impressions: the share of your Google impressions that come from AI answers, over the last 28 days, compared with the 28 before. It is only computed on days present both in the export and in PivotSEO's Search Console history — dividing September figures by August figures would mean nothing.
• AI impressions: their number, and their four-week trend.
• Per week (« AI impressions per week »): click a bar to show, under the chart, the week's figures — AI impressions, AI share when the week is complete, and change vs the previous week. It works with a finger too, on a phone or tablet.
• Pages most used: two columns. Shown in an AI answer: how many times Google showed the page inside an AI answer, and below it, how many times it showed it in total. Out of 100 Google displays of the page: how many happened in an AI answer — « 81 in AI » means that out of 100 times Google showed the page, 81 were in an AI Overview or AI Mode and 19 in the classic results. PivotSEO reads that total from Search Console at import time, so the project's Google account must be connected.
• By country, by device: where and on what these answers are seen.

Where the figure is reused

• Home: « In Google's AI answers » tile under « AI impact in numbers ». It uses the Search Console page's figure over the selected period, with the change in points.
• Summary of client reports, the shared report and the weekly email: the « Impressions in Google's AI answers » indicator, with its change in points; a change of at least 15% over four weeks also shows under « What changed ».
• Custom reports: « Impressions in Google's AI answers » section (GEO category) — key figures and top ten pages.
• After 35 days, an import no longer appears in reports or the email, and the card asks for a new export: a two-month-old figure would pass for this week's.